


no one else will have me like you do

by PrimroseReality



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-09-22 06:38:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9589157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrimroseReality/pseuds/PrimroseReality
Summary: “In this mess,” your mother will say over and over again. Still, it doesn’t seem like much of a mess to you when Betty smiles at you, never really meeting your eyes. You don’t think you’ve ever met anyone so lonely.





	1. Veronica

**Author's Note:**

> This will be in multiple perspectives-- starting with Veronica and there will be some Veronica/Archie Betty/Archie mentions. Title is from Jimmy Eat World song 23. Thank you for reading!

Sometimes the moments between you and Betty feel like they’re in slow motion. As if you can see yourself moving and making the wrong decision, or more so the safe decision. When you stand across from each other in the hallway you want to reach out, to encircle her soft wrist in your hand, to slowly move your thumb back and forth against the permanent scars on her palms. But there are reasons to be measured and controlled. Your father lost control and that’s why you’re here to begin with. “In this mess,” your mother will say over and over again. Still, it doesn’t seem like much of a mess to you when Betty smiles at you, never really meeting your eyes. You don’t think you’ve ever met anyone so lonely.

You mean it when you tell Archie that you felt like you and Betty were meant to be. Certainly there’s some sort of pull towards Archie. He seems so safe, so all American boy who sees his problems as the heaviest of all, a burden he believes he alone should bear. But it’s Betty’s window you want to sneak into. Betty’s bed you want to bury yourself in. Betty you want. 

She wants Archie though, or at least thinks she wants Archie, thinks she should, that it makes sense, that’s it’s some bubbly pop song with him and his sideways smile kissing her goodnight. Maybe that’s why you kiss him, to understand the pull she feels toward him. It’s fine, lovely, swell, still it’s not Betty.

There’s so much Betty wants to tell someone. You can tell in her moments of vulnerability. And god does she hate being vulnerable and god does she look so beautiful when she is. If only Betty could tell you. You would tell her anything she asked, do anything she wanted. 

Slowly, even with all your mistakes, and you make so many, too many, she lets you in. She softens, doesn’t tense when you tap your shoulder against her, rest your hand on top of her’s, wipe a bit of lipstick off the corner of her mouth. It’s slow and you’re not a patient person. You’ve never been patient with anyone. In New York you dropped anyone who didn’t please you or go along with what you wanted as if it was nothing. And then they dropped you after everything with your dad. Delighted in your fall. Betty would never do that. There’s moments where you have to control yourself from falling into her completely because your walls are down waiting for Betty to walk through, but she is still surrounded by reinforced brick and barbed wire. You’re stubborn too though and you let yourself get pricked by it, think you’ve made it through and then you hit another even stronger wall. There’s care you have to take about what you ask, things you never ask. Polly, her mother’s collection of pills, her father’s collection of gin. So, for the first time, you'll be patient.

Her parents are helpful in some ways. When Betty tells you they’re asleep you can sneak in through the back door, up the back stairs, and into Betty’s room. They never wake up. Too medicated to be aware of the few creaks you emit when you miss just the right placement of your feet.

You watch her face soften as it falls into sleep and then harden. Her heaviness doesn’t leave her in sleep. She can’t hide how much it affects her. She falls asleep with her back to you, but as the night moves, and she tosses and turns, which you get used to and barely wakes you up anymore, she gets closer to you, until her nose is pressed against your bare shoulder as her eyes begin to crinkle into awareness. It’s perhaps this moment that causes you the most pain. When she realizes how close she has come to you in the night and abruptly moves her warmth away with an embarrassed smile of her eyes. 

She dresses in the bathroom, never showing too much skin, never showing you too much of her. But you think about it, oh do you think about what Betty would look like when you slowly unbutton her shirt, moving her shoulders out of her cardigan, a soft kiss pressed to her collar bone after each button. 

You wonder if Kevin knows sometimes. You’ll see him looking from you to Betty, back and forth, a quizzical look on his face, an eyebrow almost halfcocked in recognition, but not fully getting there. It’s the nights that he’s in Betty’s room that you have to wait the longest. You’re annoyingly jealous of him. Betty trusts him and he knows Betty. Of course some of that has to do with the simple passage of time. Give you a lifetime with Betty and you’d be more knowledgeable than Kevin. Kevin allows the idea of Betty, the perfectionist. He can ignore the parts that aren’t Riverdale’s idea of Betty.

It’s the pills that start it. Betty’s been in such a fog recently, ever since she got a B+ on their trig test. You’ll take full responsibility for keeping Betty from studying. You’d convinced her that she’d known it enough, that doing ten more problems wouldn’t help anything, that she needed sleep, and please come lay down with you, Bets. It’s one of the only nights that she turns to you as you fall asleep, letting you run your hand through her hair, letting your nails put just enough pressure that her eyes slowly close and she looks as close to peaceful as you’ve ever seen her. But a B+ won’t do. Alice won’t have it and you can’t sneak in for two weeks. 

Alice watches Betty take her pills every morning. The pills that keep Betty from eating and from being Betty and you’re jumping out of your skin, like a livewire, seeking moments of your Betty, and you feel old Veronica creeping in. It’s measured control you exhibit when Cheryl says something to Betty about her slowness as she moves through some stupid choreography. Measured control that hinders you from slapping her across the face, instead using a few carefully chosen words to get your point across that just because you’re soft around Betty doesn’t mean you’re soft around everyone else. 

Mom has to go to New York for something to do with your father so you’re alone in the apartment. And Smithers wouldn’t say anything so you decide to have what Riverdale could call a party. You make Betty promise to come, that you’ll call the whole thing off without her. Archie and Kevin won’t have that so with the power of peer pressure Betty and Archie arrive promptly with sheepish grins and water bottles certainly not filled with water. 

You suppose it should cause you anxiety to see the teeming throng of drunk teens in your apartment, but you can barely focus on anything but the blonde hair flipping around on the dance floor. It may be alcohol induced fun, but Betty is having fun nonetheless, she seems free. Free enough to grind herself against Archie, who drunkenly doesn’t seem to be thinking about the fact that she’s too perfect to love like that, too drunk to remember he doesn’t want them to be a power couple as he leans down to press their lips together. 

It’s hyperbolic to say you feel like you’ve been hit by a train, like you’ve jumped into ice water, submerged under ice while you watch them kiss. Time passes in slow motion as Betty pushes him softly away from her with a quick peck to his lips, a giggle, and a shake of her head. It’s Kevin whose eyes you find upon you as you rush to the alcohol. His eyebrow is fully cocked now and there’s understanding all over his face. “I am such a bad gay. I thought it was Archie and all this time it wasn’t, it’s Betty.” You want to tell him no, scoff at him, tell him he’s crazy. You’re too tired for that. Too tired to pretend that Betty doesn’t mean everything to you. He nods again. “She pushed him away,” he states, taking the shaking bottle out of your hands and pouring you both a shot. “For the past eleven years Betty would have never pushed him away and suddenly she pushes him away. Doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me.” He places the shot in your hand, clinks your glasses together, and takes his. “Off to find my own sexually fluid partner, good luck Veronica.” And just like that he’s gone. 

The party ends quickly, someone throws up out the window onto the sidewalk below, and there’s a call for onion rings, and the throng descends down the stairs onto the streets. Sorry Riverdale. Archie offers to help clean up, a hint of red on his cheeks as he looks in between you and Betty. Before you can speak it is Betty who says no, it’s fine, and she’s going to sleep here tonight so she doesn’t need a walk home either. It pauses him because even with alcohol he seems to be aware that Betty is rejecting him, that maybe, just maybe you’re hoping, she’s choosing you. So he says his goodbyes, an awkward hug to Betty and a nod from behind the bar before pulling that stupid letterman jacket on and heading home. 

You clean next to one another silently. Passing different things back and forth into trash bags and back onto shelves. There’s not as much damage as you expected. Those football goons are at least helpful in moving the furniture around to keep them out of the firing line. 

You’re nervous as you wash your hands under hot water, watching your hands redden under the scald, you barely feel it. All you can hear is the blood pumping in your ears and Kevin’s words repeating in your head. She pushed him away. There’s a hundred reasons why she could have pushed him away. Because it hurt her that he would only kiss her drunk. Because she’s trying so hard not to love him. You know what that’s like. Trying not to love someone, wanting not to, and failing, failing so hard. 

Betty comes over and hands you a towel as she turns off the water. “You look so tired Ronnie. Let’s go to bed,” she says softly, not meeting your eyes.  
You don’t let a lot of people into your room because it’s such a window into your reality. You’re messy behind that door. Clothes strewn on the ground, books stacked up indiscriminately, half used bottles of perfume, an unmade bed, it’s all you. Betty changes in the bathroom while you numbly put your own pajamas on. Without a word she lightly pushes you toward the bed, getting in on the other side after turning the lights off. 

The blood still pumps loudly in your ears, your body humming with the alcohol and the prickle of Betty’s arm resting so close to yours. “Archie kissed me tonight,” she states emotionless. You nod unable to find the words that you want to say, or the words she wants to hear. “It was nice. But what was odd is it just made me think about the last person who kissed me, the first person who ever really kissed me and how I wanted them to be kissing me.”

“Who was that?” You can’t control the shake in your voice as much as you try.

“You.”


	2. Kevin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’ll shake her head when you say something particularly offensive and say your name with that easy lilt, the ghost of a giggle at the corners of her mouth as she shakes her head, “Kev…”

Betty never notices people looking at her. That’s something you know about Betty that most people don’t. Archie may be her self-appointed best friend, but he has never studied her like you have. Certainly, you know there’s been times that you’ve been a bad listener, perhaps because Betty is such a good one. She’ll shake her head when you say something particularly offensive and say your name with that easy lilt, the ghost of a giggle at the corners of her mouth as she shakes her head, “Kev…” 

Betty never notices people looking at her, but you see them. Betty has this soft comfort to her that has slowly disappeared from the landscape of polite society. It’s so easy for heathens like Cheryl Blossom to be cruel to her to keep themselves from doing the easy thing, letting Betty know them. It takes a bit for you to get out of your self-obsessed teenage bubble to realize that Betty listens to not tell, to not answer the questions that may come. 

Veronica loves having eyes on her. You have to admit that she radiates, a magnetic enigma who everyone wants to crack. It’s her eyes that you find on Betty the most often these days. Whether they’re next to each other in the library doing homework or across a room from one another you will find Veronica’s eyes never leaving Betty for too long. Sometimes she can tell you can see her staring and she’ll simply smooth her hands over her dress and look down at her phone, the smallest hint of a blush on her cheeks. 

It’s hard for you to figure Veronica out. She kisses Archie and pleads for Betty’s forgiveness. There’s something held back in all the apologies to you. Something unsaid that would make it all make some sort of sense. 

It’s at Veronica’s party that you find her staring unabashedly at Betty. You see the way her face darkens when Archie reaches down to kiss Betty. See the visible pain on her face at Betty’s dreams come through. But you also watch the way Betty’s face changes as she pulls away. Sure she smiles at Archie with that Betty smile, but there’s some different as she searches somewhat frantically for Veronica whose back is now receding towards the alcohol. 

You know you’re right as you offer Veronica a shot. Usually, you would feel triumphant, but Veronica looks so very sad that it’s almost tragic. You impart some of your wisdom on her. There’s only so much you can do before you need to focus on you though and so you head back into the party, catching Betty’s glare at the surrounding revelers for just a second before she sees you and lightens into what everyone thinks is the real Betty. Betty’s so much more than you or anyone else thought. Well maybe, and it’s so unfortunate to admit, except for Veronica.


	3. Betty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’ll sweep a thumb over your scarred palms and gently shake your bottle of ADHD medication as she sorts through your boring makeup collections. Just shows you she’s there, she sees even if you don’t tell her. So you start thinking about the kiss again.

There’s routine in your life that protects you. You’ve found the ways to keep your mother happy. Light pink lipstick, a bit of blush, a tight ponytail, just a flash of skin. It’s a recipe for blending in, for being allowed to leave with nothing more than a terse nod in the morning. Polly rebelled. She screamed and threw a dark shade of purple on her lips before running out the door. That ended so well for her. Though if you’re honest you miss Polly like it’s a piece of you. She used to play the game so well with mom and dad then something happened or a lot happened. You wish you knew.

Veronica makes you forget about Polly. She makes you forget about everything. She comes into town like some sort of natural disaster, except she stays. First she steals your first kiss from your lips, because quick moments in front of your house in the second grade with Archie Andrews don’t really count. Maybe you just never knew what kissing was because you didn’t think it would make you feel like this. Her kiss moves down from your lips to rest somewhere in your toes, your body lightly vibrating as she pulls away. 

Then she goes into that closet with Archie and you let yourself forget the kiss in that moment. It’s over now Betty. You tell yourself you love Archie, that you’re mad at him and want him to love you. It rings untrue as you cry tears over whatever happened in that closet.

Veronica apologizes, continues to apologize. She notices things about you that you don’t want anyone to. She’ll sweep a thumb over your scarred palms and gently shake your bottle of ADHD medication as she sorts through your boring makeup collections. Just shows you she’s there, she sees even if you don’t tell her. So you start thinking about the kiss again. Even as you talk about boys, sometimes even kissing ones in a dark corner of a party, it’s the light pressure of her tongue asking entry into your mouth that you think about. 

It gets hard to sleep without her next to you. You can feel her eyes on your back, that you keep so carefully to her as you go to sleep. Sometimes you even feel a phantom fingertip reaching out towards you, asking to let you trace it up a spine. 

Even in a crowded hallway she finds you, popping up with a gentle nudge to your hip. She’ll loop your arms together and lead you somewhere quiet where she’ll prattle on and you’ll try to concentrate on something other than the light touches she presses to your cheeks, your hands, the creases of your elbows. 

Kevin notices you’re spending more time with Veronica than him. He pouts when you tell him Veronica is on her way over, meaning time for his exit out of the Cooper house. Even Archie says something as you watch television together one lazy Sunday afternoon, passing a bowl of popcorn back and forth. You think about how much importance you used to put in the ways your fingers would intersect while reaching for another handful. Somehow everything has shifted. You’re checking your phone for what most be the umpteenth time when Archie reaches to grab it. He’s all strong limbs and you’re nothing against it as he tears it away from what you think is an impressively strong grasp. “How long are you going to be with Archiekins? I’m bored and I miss you,” he says while still pushing your reaching hands away. “Nice to know she calls me Archiekins even when she’s not in front of my face.” He has that slight blush of a boy whose proud of something as his eyes read the screen again. “Sounds like she needs some entertainment; she can come over if you want.” He says it with what he must think is a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. You nod and he begins typing ferociously back before waiting for the reply. “She’ll be here in five.” He throws the phone onto your lap with a triumphant grin. 

The two of you seem to be taking turns anxiously looking towards the front door. Archie pops up as soon as the bell rings. Veronica accepts his hug. Her eyes search for you over his shoulder. It may be your imagination but Veronica seems to soften, even for a moment, each time she sees you looking back. She situates herself on the couch in between the two of you, greeting you with a tap to the back of your hand. 

Veronica keeps up with Archie’s blathering, adding her pithy commentary every now and then but mostly allowing him to control the flow. For some reason you can’t focus, whether it be on the bright screen or the words going back and forth between your friends, it’s like it’s all a jumble and all you can focus on is Veronica’s hand coming dangerously close to your leg’s exposed skin. It becomes too much and you can’t exactly find the words to describe why. You smooth your hands over your short before letting them both know you have to go home to finish studying for your test, the original lie that allowed you out of the house. Veronica pops up, saying she’ll come with you. You protest, but not strongly enough and after Archie reaching for a rather gratuitous hug she’s following you up your back stairs thankful for your parents’ long hours at the newspaper once again. 

You suppose this is the Veronica that is saved for you. The Veronica that holds a pencil lightly in between her teeth, eyes crinkled in concentration as she asks you a quiet question about her work now and then, otherwise staying silent from her many pillowed perch on your bed. It’s not too late when she clicks the lock on your door, something you’re still somehow allowed, mostly because you think dad’s too lazy to try to remove it and mom would think DIY like that is beneath her. She tells you to put your pajamas on, that it’s time to get in bed, you’ve studied enough. There’s more studying you could do about the arcsine and even inverse functions, but you’re also so tired. The exhaustion hits you as Veronica grabs one of your t shirts and puts it over her own shoulders, playfully throwing her now removed bra at you.

You change in the safety of the bathroom. With a deep breath you find Veronica arranging the pillows just how you like them. It’s as if you forget that you’re meant to put your back to her as you lay down with your faces inches apart. “You look so tired,” she whispers, words unsaid passing between your eyes. You follow her hand as it moves up to scratch behind your ear, moving the strands between her lithe fingers. You fall gently into a sleep that is better than you’ve had in months.

Your mother told you what to say at the doctor when you got those orange pills that she insists you take. You’re so young and naïve when it happens that you don’t know that what your mother says is wrong. It’s as if you feel the inability to focus just with her imprinting it into your brain. Slowly as you grow you concoct ways to hide them. You hate the way they make you feel. It’s like there’s a wall in between you and the world. Sure you can concentrate on what the teacher says, take your notes, answer the questions that they want you to. Your trig grade goes up, your English paper is stellar, but Veronica is chewing her lip every time she looks at you. She touches you more when you’re on the pills you notice. Maybe it’s because you don’t have the power to lightly flinch away, maybe she needs to anchor you, maybe you need it. You do need it. 

Your parents are gone on assignment and you’ve gotten away two days pill scot-free when you move through the throngs of teenage pheromones at Veronica’s party. There’s dancing and alcohol and you feel so completely free as you dance with your friends. Archie swings you around and it’s like you’re six again, dancing to old records in your basement as Polly directs you. It’s so easy when he reaches down and kisses you. And you should feel complete. It’s all you’ve ever wanted after all. When his tongue requests entry in between your lips though you still. It’s the wrong tongue, the wrong lips, and it all makes sense. 

You want everyone to leave. You watch each and every person walk out the door. Veronica’s not looking at much at all, slowly sipping some amber liquid out of an expensive looking glass. Archie is the last to leave, all attempts to be chivalrous, but really just another horny teenage boy. That’s all he is. 

Veronica won’t look at you as she seemingly pretends to clean something at the sink. You bring her to bed, lay down next to her, and you start talking like it’s the easiest thing in the world, like you could have said these words a thousand times before you’ve simply been waiting for the right time as you turn to her and let your lips connect again.


	4. Veronica

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She doesn’t look at you and perhaps it’s that that you feel the most.

She’s gone in the morning when you wake up. It’s not surprising, but still that awful feeling of rejection settles in the pit of your stomach and reminds you that she left every time you see the slight Betty shaped indent on her side of the bed. There’s a swell to your bottom lip when you look at your reflection, otherwise, like the indent, no one could know what had happened under the guise of alcohol induced declarations last night. And how wonderful it was in those moments when Betty rested her palm on your stomach as she let her lips explore your neck. Now she’s gone and that’s that and you try to not let her have this power over you as you check your phone for the hundredth time. Still she’s there in the back of your head quietly murmuring your name with each meeting of your lips. It’s horrendous really. 

Betty spends the next week at school ignoring you just enough that no one notices. She’ll sit with you at lunch and stretch near you at cheerleading practice, but never too close, always wandering off whenever you find yourselves suddenly alone. She doesn’t look at you and perhaps it’s that that you feel the most. 

Or maybe it’s the way Kevin looks at you like he knows you like he knows exactly how you feel. He pities you and no one’s ever done that before. No one felt bad for you when everything happened with your father. Not that you deserved that. In some ways you’re thankful for that now because each time you see Kevin giving you his idea of puppy dog eyed sympathy you feel positively humiliated that Betty so clearly doesn’t want you like you want her. 

You’re about half way through Roman Holiday at 1:34 in the morning on Friday night when your phone starts incessantly ringing. Almost unconsciously you find yourself answering. “Veronica?” You hum in recognition at the saccharine dipped voice. “Can you come get me? I’m at Reggie’s and I just… Can you come get me?” 

All of it falls away so quickly when she professes that she wants you to come get her. You can see the way her mouth forms around the words, your breathing matching her intonation as you find yourself moving towards the door. “I’ll be there soon.”

It’s somehow begun raining outside of the protection of your bubble of Audrey and Gregory, a long discarded sweatshirt your only protection as you move the car down the streets of Riverdale. 

A small puddle pools at Betty’s feet outside the door of Reggie’s house. Her outfit mirrors the one she wore with the hot tub with Chuck and you think you just might be paralyzed as she runs the short distance into the car, sliding her small dripping frame close to you. 

You don’t say anything as you drive, neither does she, though you feel the looks she gives you every few seconds, her nails dug tightly into her palms. It’s like you can almost feel the forming scars, remember how they contrast to the smoothness of her under your lips. 

You stop in front of her house, putting the car into park, but remaining stoic in not looking over towards you. “Goodnight Ronnie,” she says quietly before slipping out of the car and back into the rain.  
You can’t help it, ignore all the risks, accept that this problem started as soon as you looked into her eyes as you get out the car to follow her into the rain. “Why did you call me? You could’ve called Archie, Jug, even Cheryl they would have all come and gotten you.” You don’t ask her why she was there, that at least you know you should protect yourself from. 

“I didn’t want them to come get me. I wanted you.” She’s getting dangerously close to you. Rain drops on eyelashes close, distinguishing between tears and rain close, the slight hint of lipstick not washed away close.

“What do you want from me, Betty?” She shrugs and you’re getting consistently soaked so you turn back to the car, decide maybe this isn’t worth pneumonia if all you’re going to get is vague answers that only scratch at the truth. It’s then that you remember who you are, as you can feel her eyes on your receding back, you’re Veronica Lodge and Betty Cooper may have you like putty in your hands, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything about it. You turn to her, shoulders back, that feeling that you know there’s a glint in your eye. “Because I know what I want. I want you and not just lying in bed watching you sleep, not just the ghost of a hand on mine. I don’t care about the things you try to hide because those are you and I want those too because I want all of you.”

There’s another long pause between you with ragged breaths staring at each other before Betty murmurs, “I’m terrified.”

“I know, Bets, I know you are.” 

She breaks then, falling into your arms. “I couldn’t stand it, Ronnie; I couldn’t stand being away from you.” You whisper into her ear that you know, you understand, you felt the same. 

She leads you up to her bedroom. You ask about her parents, they’ll see your car outside and she says she’ll figure it out, she always does. You’re both so tired by the time you take your wet clothes off that you simply envelop each other, folding your bodies together under the protection of Betty’s comforter, your lips pressed to her wrist to keep time with the fluttering beat of her heart.

You know she’s looking at you as your body adjusts to the feelings of the morning. Instead of opening your eyes you let her keep looking for a little bit longer. “I know you’re awake Ronnie,” she muses, a comfortable lilt to her voice that you hope she saves only for you. You refuse to open your eyes, choosing to move you face closer to her’s so your noses are almost pressed together. “We should get up.” You shush her with a light kiss to her hairline right above your ear. There’d been hours that you’d thought about placing your lips on that particular spot, burying your nose into the thin baby hairs there. It’s things like this that make her so different. Certainly, you’d lusted before- after boys and girls, but there had been a pure physicality to that, a desire to rip clothes off. Sure there’s that with Betty too, but there’s so much more, soft touches and hours listening to her voice, you’ve never wanted everything before. Betty’s smiling. You smile too. “My parents will be up soon.”

“Fine,” you moan as excessively dramatic as you can muster with her so close. “I guess I’ll have to acquiesce to your desires and extricate myself from your arms.”

“Have you always been this way?”

“What way?”

“So completely you.”

“I suppose I have. Truthfully, I haven’t felt like me for quite a long time. Until… until now.”

“Until me.”

You nod. “Until you.” Betty looks at you with a new expression, a triumphant smirk marking her features with a pride you wish she wore each day. “Ok, I’ll never leave if you keep looking at me like that.” You throw your now mostly dried sweatshirt, except for an unfortunately folded over cuff, over your head before burrowing your nose back into your spot above her ear. “Bye Bets.” 

She nods in return before gingerly opening her bedroom door to reveal Alice Cooper staring at the two of them. “Veronica Lodge.”

“Hello Mrs. Cooper, how are you this morning?”

“A bit astonished to be quite frank. I was under the impression that Betty was spending the evening working on her chemistry project with Ethel.”

“I was mom until Veronica called because her mom’s out of town and she was lonely in her apartment and I didn’t think you would mind her coming over if it meant she felt safer.”

“It’s really all my fault. I have a completely irrational fear of the dark,” You speak up, trying to place your body between the feuding Coopers. 

“Well, I think it’s best if you leave now Veronica.”

“That’s what she was trying to do before you accosted her in the hallway.” There may have never been a moment that you more wanted to press a reassuring hand on Betty. You know more so that it’s not the time. Alice Cooper may think you’re a horrible influence on her daughter already, but if she knew what sort of way you were influencing Betty you knew the chances of you walking through the front door anytime soon would be even slimmer. So you tell Betty it’s all fine, you’ll see her later, and hope that Mrs. Cooper has a wonderful weekend. 

A flurry of text messages pings welcome you to the car.

Betty:  
I’m so sorry about her.

She wants to make it ever so clear that I am not allowed to have any sort of fun.

Not that this was just fun.

Is just fun.

God.

Smiling, you write back.

You:  
Let’s just say you’re not your mother’s daughter and leave it at that. I’ll see you later?

Betty:  
Of course. 

 

With that you drive back home.


	5. Betty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You fall asleep kissing, your lips still lightly touching as your eyelids fight the tremendous urge to shut. In the end you fall asleep to her even breathing, the first bubbles of anxiety fighting against the alcohol and the tipsy feeling kissing Veronica gives you.

When you were younger a teenage babysitter would bring you and Polly to the community pool almost each summer day because her boyfriend was a lifeguard. She’d deposit you in the shallow end only returning to give each of you a slightly soggy turkey sandwich around lunch time. Polly would hold you under water until your lungs screamed for release and then only a second longer until you pinched her thigh two times, she always let you up once you did this, and you took in gulps of hot summer air while she gave you a congratulatory smile, proud that you could do it for longer and longer under her tutelage. This is what it feels like when you drunkenly kiss Veronica, the taste of toothpaste and whiskey on both your mouths. And you know it’s odd that you’re thinking of this moment as Veronica places her hands on either side of your face, cradling you to her, but it’s the only way you can find yourself able to describe the way it makes you feel. She’s so careful with where she places her hands and the timid way in which her tongue asks for entry into your mouth. You fall asleep kissing, your lips still lightly touching as your eyelids fight the tremendous urge to shut. In the end you fall asleep to her even breathing, the first bubbles of anxiety fighting against the alcohol and the tipsy feeling kissing Veronica gives you. 

Waking up is the hardest that morning, extricating yourself from the smile on Veronica’s lips, and moving your way quietly out of her apartment. The bubbles are now a full on torrent of panic as you think about the way she looked at you last night. The fact that she’s a girl certainly doesn’t fit into your best-made plans, you’ll admit that’s where some of the panic comes from. There’s an undercurrent of something else that you can’t quite name though. It lies in the way she watches you from across a room, the way she asks for entry into your life, the way she quietly lets you know she wants to know everything about you, the way you think she may already understand you more than anyone else ever has. 

So you fight all the impulses to fall back into her bed not only that morning but throughout the entire week even as you ache for her eyes upon you. She radiates a deeply set pain towards you, a desire to reach out, each time she manages to catch your gaze it’s as if her fingertips reach out to you, the ghost of a feeling on your cheek. 

When Reggie Mantle performs his usual act at propositioning you at your locker on Thursday morning after French class you surprise both of you by telling him yes and you’ll see him at his home at midnight on Friday. He’s shocked for a moment before appropriately turning back into his well-manufactured jock asshole character. If someone asked you in that moment why you said yes you would have probably shrugged, admitted that he was objectively attractive and the only way to get him to stop asking would ultimately be this conclusion. This would have been a lie.

He offers you a glass of white wine that tastes vaguely like plastic mixed with pear as you sit at the foot of his twin bed neither of you offering much in terms of conversation before he mashes your lips together. As he slows down a bit you have the sensation that this isn’t actually too bad. He obviously has experience and there are small moments where you stop feeling the guilt in the back of your head like a slowly creeping in headache. It’s not until he reaches for the button in your jeans that something changes in you. He does it in a gentle way, looking you directly in the eyes before beginning to unzip your fly. And there’s this moment where it’s not the guilt that you feel, but the unmistakable feeling of wanting someone else to be doing this. You don’t want Reggie Mantle to be the first person to ever take your pants off. So you shake your head vigorously back and forth and his hand jumps away like it’s been burned as you step off his lap and pull your shirt back over your head, already dialing Veronica’s number before you fully have your jacket on.

She’s there with what she must think is a strong and convincing attempt at anger look on her face as she appropriately doesn’t look over at you the entirety of the car ride. 

Then there’s so many declarations falling from both your lips and you’re falling into bed together and you don’t know why you fought it, ever even thought of fighting it.

In some ways your lucky that your mother has this predilection for despising Veronica because it blinds her to all these things that seem to have changed in you overnight. Seemingly no one sees this difference in the way the energy crackles when you see Veronica walk into a room, a knowing grin pointed completely at you. She’s taken to walking by each of your classes that she’s not in with you about half way through, looking quickly through the small window before making her way back to class. Somehow she finds you in the passing time between each class, whether it’s simply a look across a hallway, or a quick tender touch to the crease of your elbow she finds a way to tell you she’s there.

She doesn’t kiss you in the time after that night in the rain, hasn’t kissed you yet, not on the lips at least. She lays her lips on your forehead, your cheeks, that place where your hairline meets skin, and your palms. On the nights she’s able to sneak into your bedroom she falls asleep with your palms pressed to her lips, as if you might make new scars in the night if she doesn’t. And it’s true there are certainly nights with new marks made from an especially difficult conversation with your mother and mornings when she hasn’t spent the night with you she checks these first. She never asks just presses light kisses to them, a slight shake back in forth from her head. But still she doesn’t kiss your lips, doesn’t ask to go further than light touches to your face. You don’t know what she’s waiting for, but there’s a frustration resting in a place in your stomach you haven’t felt before every time she pulls away right before reaching your lips. 

Reggie has mostly dipped his head down whenever he sees you in the hallway, unable, or uninterested in making eye contact with you. You wait for someone to snicker when you walk past, to make it known that he’s spread the news everywhere that he fondled Betty in his bed but she was too much of a prude to go all the way. It doesn’t come though. Then Reggie starts staring at Veronica. Like he’s suddenly noticed she exists, a goddess in the midst of Riverdale, you can’t blame him really, you clearly completely understand, and then that there’s nothing else he’s ever wanted more. She’s polite to him whenever he talks to her, asks her questions about homework, about New York, about whether she likes onion rings more than French fries. She must know what he’s trying to do and it’s not like Veronica to humor something that she’s not interested in. You find them sitting together one day in the library. She’s laughing at something he says before passing him notes from a Chemistry class that he’d been out sick for. It’s the first time that her eyes don’t snap to you as soon as you walk into the room, instead they slowly make their way to you as Reggie gives you an awkward wave. She smiles lightly, distractedly at you, before getting up and following you out to your car. 

In the small space of your car your senses can’t avoid Veronica. The distracted way she stares out the window, the smell of her perfume, the clicking of her fingers nails on the arm rest, and the way her skin calls out for your hands to touch it. So you jump over the barrier in between you, letting your lips capture her own in a jumble of limbs and shock. She anchors you to her with palms on either side of your face with a knowing smile and the faint mumble of a finally. You back into your seat at this, her lips still reaching out to you. “What do you mean finally?”

“Well, I certainly will say it’s taken longer than I would have liked, frankly I’ve been going a bit crazy, it feels like I’ve been waiting years for you to kiss me.”

“Then why didn’t you kiss me?”

“Because I wanted to make sure you wanted to kiss me.”

“Didn’t we talk about this?”

“No, we talked about the fact that you wanted me, but you never said how really. I just didn’t want you to be confused and not want me in the ways I want you. I wanted you to be sure.” You cross your arms in what you know is a dramatic huff. “And I’ll admit that I like that look that’s on your face when you’re jealous.”

“That’s what you’ve been doing with Reggie?”

“You really thought I’d been flirting with Reggie for anything other than you?”

“I don’t know.”

There’s recognition on her face then at the expression that must be on your’s. “Oh Betty,” she says, moving her hands up to your face to make your eyes meet her own. “I’m so sorry you thought that I liked him. I thought you knew I only liked you, only want to be with you. I guess I’m just used to playing games like that and it’s hard to get out of that mindset, but I promise no more stupid games. Ok? Just you and me.”

“Just you and me,” you repeat before Veronica kisses you this time firmly and with a purpose to tell you that what she said was all just true. Just B and V.


End file.
